


Take me in. Take me. Take.

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [36]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Collegestuck, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - CPTSD, Derealization/Depersonalization - DRDP, Eating Disorders, F/M, Humanstuck, One-Sided Attraction, Psychosis, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6791317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovery is not a straight-line path. You, Kurloz Makara, should know this better than most people. But you're slowly improving, living in Chinatown with Porrim, Mituna, and Calliope, none of whom are strictly sane. Somehow, this living arrangement constitutes a strange equilibrium. </p><p>-</p><p>You are Calliope Calver, and for every step forward you make, you feel as if you take two steps back. To call yourself dissatisfied with certain arrangements would be the pinnacle of ungratefulness. So you try to pretend. You've always been good at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. did i make the sounds go sour?

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably read "playing with my shadow" and "moving to the moon" before you read this, for the sake of understanding. Particularly the former, since the latter is incomplete. I think I wrote the latter before I wrote either chapter of this. But yeah, you're going to need to read "playing with my shadow" to understand what's going on.
> 
> Fic title and chapter titles borrowed from a poem by Anne Sexton (Anna Who Was Mad).

 

 

> _Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy._
> 
> \- Anne Sexton

* * *

 

_**Kurloz Makara - January 2010** _

If you could control time, after you traveled to 1968 to high five Jimi Hendrix, you’d make Calliope Calver eleven again. She doesn’t look much older than that, anyway.

You’d make her eleven, and let her have something resembling a normal adolescence. Not this existence where she wakes up screaming in an apartment full of young adults, begging Caliborn to stop hitting her, and only Popo’s repeated reassurances that she is in Chinatown, far from anyone who would harm her, can calm her down.

She always apologizes for her night terrors, as if she has any control over them.

She apologizes for everything.

You don’t begrudge her this, you understand why she does. You didn’t have the greatest childhood yourself, though yours was more neglect than abuse. Your grandmother, who was too old to be doing so much, raised you and Gamzee until she died, with occasional appearances from your uncle, whom you despise more than anyone on Earth.

(Although the fact that you managed to spare Gamzee the worst of the neglect is probably one of your crowning achievements).

You’re not quite sure when you became the fourth roommate in this increasingly cramped apartment down on Chrystie Street, when your pile of sheets and sweatshirts that you’d set up a few feet away from Callie’s air mattress became a makeshift bed. You know why you left home, though. Your uncle kept referring to you as a useless piece of shit who did nothing but paint and smoke weed, and insisted that you would never amount to anything.

He probably isn’t wrong, but you got tired of hearing it. So rather than punching him in the face, you walked out.

Your old therapist, one of the better ones, the one who reminded you of either Miss Levin or Ms. Martineau insofar as they seemed to never stop believing in you, would be proud.

You’d resisted a violent impulse.

Originally you’d felt bad for abandoning Gamzee, but it turned out that he spent most of his evenings at Karkat’s anyway, trying to get tutored so he didn’t fail History. Cranky must be having a field day with your brother around.

At any rate, here you are on Chrystie Street, playing video games with Tuna when ze’s not in class, playing cat’s cradle with the string in Porrim’s sewing kit, working at your dead-end job in a grocery store, and making up fairy tales for the benefit of your youngest roommate.

During the night, Callie joins you in your blanket pile of destiny more often than not, sitting curled up, with her chin resting on her knees.

In that mom way of hers, Porrim worries faintly about her penchant for winding up in your sleeping area so frequently, particularly since her idea of sleepwear is a t-shirt and panties, but Callie insists that sitting with you before she goes to sleep makes her feel more secure.

Maybe because you’re the one who sleeps with a switchblade. It’s as good a theory as any.

You’re not about to do anything untoward to her. She’s the same age as your brother, and she looks even younger than that. Moreover, she’s Callie. She’s your friend slash younger sister.

She retreats into herself a little more.

You glance at her, tap her shoulder, and turn so she can see your face.

 _“Something wrong?”_ you sign.

Her eyes track your movements, but you don’t know if she’s fully present at the moment. Maybe she just wants some alone time. But before you can get up to leave her alone, she starts to speak.

“You understand me, you know,” she says abruptly, voice uncharacteristically toneless.

_“How so?”_

“You understand that i am not the person they believe me to be,” she continues. “I am not this sweet, kind person. I’m _angry.”_

She tells you about impulses and shadows, how unreal she’s felt sometimes, the things she’s done to make herself feel, her violent urges, the fear of these thoughts being discovered, and, moreover, the fear that she might act on them. She’s already broken things in the past. What happens when she decides to move onto people? Then she’ll be like her brother.

 _“Anger is a legit emotion,_ ” you sign. _“You’ve been through a whole shitload of stuff.”_

“What if I’m really angry, though? and i can’t control it?”

_“Then you up and find some fuckin’ ways to rein it in. Practice your knitting, motherfucker.”_

Callie briefly puts her head on your shoulder, careful not to let her hair mess up your grease paint.

“i’ll try.”

You pull her into a one-armed hug.

_“That’s the shit I like to hear, righteous sister.”_

While she’s still pressed up against you, she musses your hair, and lets out a tremulous exhale. If she wants to be held, you’re not gonna judge.

When she lets go, as befitting the late hour, you continue your latest story, one about the brave princess of Shangri-La. armed with nothing but a shortspear, the princess managed to slay the murderous and evil dragon that not even the juggalo king could defeat.

Though she triumphed, restoring peace to the kingdom, she did not emerge entirely unscathed. The dragon wounded her deeply, the searing fire of his breath leaving her with permanent scarring on her face. This is not the first time anyone’s compared Caliborn’s fucked up prank to a dragon's breath (Latula thought of it first), but you keep the story going.

Rather than disfiguring the princess, these marks attested to her bravery. They were battle scars, after all.

You try to keep your movements slow and your vocabulary simple throughout. While Callie’s proficiency in ASL continues to improve in leaps and bounds, she still has a great deal to learn and you don’t want to confuse her.

Therefore you have to keep stopping the story to fingerspell things for her. You don’t mind, though. as long as she gets what you’re saying.

When Porrim is awake and home, and not cooking, studying, or ruminating (a phenomenon that happens every month or so), she watches this exchange with vague interest.

One night, as a goof, you add her to the story. She nearly chokes on the piece of boiled cassava she’s eating.

In the kingdom of Shangri-La, Porrim is a vampire, but she’s also sort of a protagonist, determined to defend the oppressed and downtrodden. Moreover, she has a glare of judgment capable of turning men to stone, particularly the wicked. Sort of like Medusa, but with skimpier clothing.

Porrim snorts and rolls her eyes.

“Of course you had to describe my attire in such a manner.”

To appease her, you add a part where she falls in love with a mermaid who swims the oceans, bedecked in all sorts of jewelry and looking for more golden things to add to her collection. Porrim’s gaze flicks down to the gold bracelet on her wrist, and she cracks a reluctant smile.

Once Mituna gets home from work, you add hir to the epic as well.

Ze is the princex of the northern kingdom, renowned for hir prowess in both the sciences and in executing sick stunts. Ze and Princess Latula, herself a scholar of the law, are some of the raddest monarchs in all of Shangri-La.

The story gets more intricate as the days wear on, as you cross paths with other friends. Your girlfriend of sorts, Damara, becomes both a consort and an assassin, in charge of bringing heretics to you so that they may be punished to the full extent of the law - usually involving a lot of dismemberment. You leave that part out of the story you tell Callie.

Kankri becomes the royal orator, otherwise known as the indomitable and righteous windbag. Porrim tells you to lay off him once she’s done laughing.

It gets to a point where you find yourself actually writing out plot stuff when you’re not painting or getting stoned. it’s something to do, other than selling weed, working, or giving Gamzee advice on how to approach Rufioh’s brother without sounding like a dork. You love your brother more than life, but he has all the common sense of a grapefruit. It’s been years since you got him one, but you still have to remind him to take off his binder each night.

It’s something to do other than chugging grape faygo and contemplating the fact that you need to get your grades up at your community college. You need to rectify all the fuckups you made when you were in a four-year school. At least you have two other fuckups attending this college with you for similar reasons - Damara, who keeps you entertained, and Cronus, who is still a bastard. He’s on his way to becoming a decent human being, though. You think. Damara says he is, and that he’s a little more than he lets on.

_"Not telling you to love him, but he's trying not to be an asshole. Trust me, I grew up with him."_

You can sit in the same room as him without plotting ways to break his neck.

Worst of all, you can feel an episode coming on, from the way your hallucinations are getting more compelling, but they’re mild enough that you can usually tune them out through either artistic pursuits or talking to others.

You elect to do the latter. Since Kankri has never, ever been acquainted with the art of silence, he’s good company for this purpose.

_(Your high school self - the guy who almost set him on fire during chem lab - would die of horror if he ever heard you thinking that.)_

Sure, some of Kankri’s concerns continue to be mountains made of molehills, and he’s a naive little liberal who advocates for reforming the system rather than toppling it entirely, but he’s gotten decent at listening to other people’s issues and points of view.

He’s toned down the ableism thing, too.

Moreover, he’s not afraid to stand his ground, to put his money where his mouth is in terms of civil disobedience and nonviolence, even when cops beat the crap out of him. So he’s an insufferable fuck, but at this stage of your life, you’ve developed something approaching respect for him. He’s an insufferable fuck with principles. He’s willing to listen.

And seated in the seventh floor lounge of the west building of his college (what used to be your college), you and he get to discussing Calliope, how she’s doing, and whether or not her current living arrangement is good for her.

 _“It’s better than letting her be a human punching bag,”_ you sign. _“Do you have any better ideas?”_

Of course, he does not.

Instead, he launches into a rant objecting to the Christmas present you purchased for her. You try to tune him out somewhere during the _“…potentially deleterious psychological effects involved in infantilizing someone at this stage of their development… you can’t turn back time, you know….”_ parts of his speech, to little avail.

Maybe he’s right, though.

Perhaps, at seventeen, Callie is too old for fairy tales and that sort of thing.

Another year and a half, and she’ll be in college. Who would take a doll to college?

Maybe you are messing her head up. You have no idea. You wouldn’t know sanity if it bit you in the ass.

_(Still, Kankri wasn’t there when you gave her that package on Christmas day. He didn’t see the way her eyes lit up, the shock intermingled with elation._

_“I’ve never had one of these,” she exclaimed, hopping from one foot to the next. “Well, i had a few, but Caliborn used to rip the heads off them. Is this really for me?”_

_“No, it’s for the cat,” you signed, shaking your head. “Merry Christmas, motherfucker.”_

_He didn’t feel her rib-crushing embrace, nor did he watch as she sat the doll down on her air mattress, still awestruck._

_You thought of Gamzee, of how hard you’d tried to ensure he had presents each year, which you did. And if you’d unofficially adopted Callie as your little sister of sorts, she certainly deserved a gift from you.)_

Besides, if you’d really screwed up gift-wise, Porrim would have done that passive-aggressive mom judgment thing at you. So you figure you’re okay. Nevertheless, Kankri is right about one thing. You don’t have a time machine. You can’t undo the past. You can’t take away Callie’s pain. Neither you, Mituna, Porrim, nor any of Callie’s friends, can fix her.

Not even her doctors can.

But maybe you can find small joys to give her now, juvenile as they may seem upon closer examination. Maybe you’ll get her a book of poetry for her birthday. Callie likes that literature shit.

After you get back to the apartment, you sit down on your blanket pile, mentally ask your auditory hallucinations to give it a rest already, and try to work on job applications. You desperately need a job that pays higher than minimum wage. You’d like to be able to contribute more in rent, and to be able to afford gas money, art supplies, and more weed.

As you fill out the latest job app, Mituna’s hyperactive cat, Enderman, jumps onto the low table where you keep your medications and knocks them all over in his eagerness to get into your lap.

You prod Enderman with your foot until he gets the message and moves over.

“Sup motherfucker?” you sign to the cat.

He blinks at you. You beckon him over and scritch him behind his ears until he bites your hand hard enough to draw blood.

Fuck, you hate cats. Not just because they remind you of your ex.

_(The one you screwed over, the one you manipulated into doing your bidding, into practically becoming your puppet. The fact that you’d never known a healthy romantic relationship before is no excuse. God, Kurloz, you’re one messed up son of a bitch.)_

You also dislike cats because they’re bitey fuzzy assholes. You stare down Enderman, until he becomes unsettled and walks away.

Looking around the apartment, and thinking about your life, you conclude that there’s something to be said about living with a bunch of crazy people. It’s preferable to living at home, anyway. Nobody judges you for your face paint, your aspirations, or your failures.

Besides, you guys look out for each other, sorta.

when Callie has her fits of dissociative anger, and hurls plates and bowls around just to watch them smash, Porrim and Mituna talk her back down to lucidity, expending about half a pack of cigarettes in the process.

Meanwhile, you steal a new set of crockery from the Bed, Bath, and Beyond on 14th St. You haven’t been caught yet. Law enforcement: 0, Kurloz: 10. You never said you were a law-abiding citizen in any way, shape or form.

In fact, your old psychiatrist was convinced - based on your history of ignoring the rules, and picking fights with people - that were a psychopath, a title you wear with honor.

When the delusions that always linger at the periphery of Mituna’s awareness insist to hir - among other things - that ze’ll drown if ze showers, Callie and Porrim run hir a bath and stand guard against anything that might threaten their roommate. Porrim deep conditions Mituna’s hair while ze and Callie slingshot hair ties at each other. you call Latula and put her on speaker so she and Mituna can talk the whole time.

When you feel the pull of the mirthful messiahs, their voices full of grand purpose and vehement proclamations, their glorious hymns promising a bloody coup if you accept your place as the unholy prophet, Porrim gets ready to take you to the hospital while Callie and Mituna attempt to reason with you. They fail, but you do appreciate that they try to calm you down before they drag you to Bellevue.

When Porrim’s overladen schedule leaves her with no time to make food, you manage to cook the only thing you can prepare without burning - rice and beans. You watch her as she eats, an annoyed furrow blooming between her eyebrows, but she thanks you nevertheless. Later, you listen for the sound of retching and a flushing toilet that never comes.

Small motherfucking miracles.

More than your other friends do - except for maybe Mituna or Meenah - you notice the cracks in her composure: the nights when she sits on the fire escape, cigarette in hand, looking down at the passing cars, and sighing. Usually she has a textbook to keep her company.

“I don’t know if it’s enough,” she confesses. “I don’t know if i’m enough. I’m so tired.”

At this point, righteous Tunasis opens the window and crawls out onto the fire escape to join you. Ze grins with hir mismatched teeth, the shine of a nearby streetlight glinting off them.

“Is this where all the fuckin’ cool kids are congregating?” Ze wants to know, with a shiver, gooseflesh erupting on hir arms.

Ze’s wearing nothing but a golden nightie and a pair of boxers: classic. You wonder if ze’s ever been acquainted with common sense, and figure that must be Latula’s job.

You shrug out of your skeleton hoodie and drape it over hir shoulders.

“If we use a very liberal definition of cool,” Porrim responds, expression deadpan.

You sock her in the arm and she elbows you in the side. Certain things have remained constant since high school. You blow into your hands to keep them warm. Mituna curses God and several other deities for inventing winter. Porrim lights another cigarette. 

And as per usual for Wednesday nights, the three of you launch into your regularly scheduled existential crises on the fire escape, amid a haze of tobacco smoke.

Porrim’s carrying a credit load that would give the ghost of Einstein himself pause, and has a part time job, along with taking responsibility for most of the housework.

Considering the last time you and Mituna tried to clean the bathroom, you mixed ammonia and bleach - add cleaning to the list of things you shouldn't do while stoned - Porrim prefers to do much of the cleaning anyway. she’s delegated a few chores to Callie, but it’s still stressful.

Aside from the fact that ze’s having problems with hir gen-ed classses, Mituna doesn’t know how to explain to hir father that he only really has one son (nor does ze know how to explain that to aforementioned son). Eventually ze’s going to have to say something, but there’s always a chance hir father will disown hir. Worse off, there’s a chance Sollux will react badly.

“i don’t want to lose him,” Mituna says. “i can’t lose my brother.”

Porrim wraps an arm around hir shoulders, careful not to burn hir with the cigarette.

Meanwhile, you have no hope of getting back into a four year college with a 1.666 GPA. You’re not particularly fond of academic institutions (unless they’re on fire), but you need one of those godforsaken degrees for pretty much all the decent jobs ever. And unless the anarchist revolution comes earlier than anticipated, you’re going to need one of those at some point.

Besides, a small part of you wants to prove your uncle wrong.

Still, your circumstances leave you up shit creek with no paddle, and no boat for that matter. Not even a boat made of a turd, a sentiment you sign for everyone’s benefit.

“TL;DR, everything fucking sucks six foot dongs,” Mituna says.

Porrim hums in agreement, wrapping her bathrobe more tightly around herself, neglecting to reprimand you or Tuna for your choice of language.

Another motherfucking miracle.

You glance at your watch.

All of you should probably be asleep, considering that two thirds of you have class in the morning, and you’re in charge of driving Callie, your brother, and several of their friends to school at around 6:30. However, as some no-doubt important philosopher said, “shit happens.”

Not too long after, Callie awakens, her hair tousled about her face. She steps outside to join all of you on the fire escape, clutching her doll in one hand and a blanket in the other, her eyes wide.

With her free hand, Porrim takes one of Callie’s.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

Callie nods.

Mituna gestures at the last bit of remaining space on the fire escape.

“So then, uh, welcome to the cool kids club. come sit with us,” ze says, patting the metal grating. “Nobody’s going to hurt you you, dude.”

“I will endeavor to worry less in light of your presence,” Callie replies, voice barely audible over the wind.

“Yeah man, fear not, i got this,” Mituna continues, gesticulating furiously with hir cigarette lighter. “I’m like fuckin’ Neo from The Matrix. I know all the kung fu. I’ll hadouken Caliborn out of this universe if he does anything.”

 _“Do it,”_ you sign. _“Motherfuckin’ obliterate him from reality.”_

Callie raises an eyebrow, breaking into a reluctant smile. Porrim barely reacts.

In your opinion, Mituna should have hir own television show and do absolutely nothing but take hir evening antipsychotics and talk about any topic. It would be the greatest hit of all time.

After Mituna’s grand proclamation, Porrim takes the blanket from Callie, and rearranges it around her so that it’ll actually keep her warm.

Minutes pass. Everyone begins to relax.

If you had your sketchbook, you’d do a quick sketch of this scene: Mituna leaning against Porrim and resting hir head one of her shoulders, Callie wrapped in a blanket and dozing off with her head on Porrim’s thigh, and Porrim herself staring at you with something like relaxed amusement.

Yeah, you’re all insane.

At least you’re insane together.

You lean your head on the railing of the fire escape and start to count the few stars you can see.


	2. give me a complete statement of my actions

 

> _Take me the gangling twelve-year-old_  
>  _into your sunken lap._
> 
> _-_ Anne Sexton

* * *

**November 2010 - Calliope Calver**

You have memories from an eternity ago, faint and diaphanous as smoke, though it’s difficult to tell where recollection ends and wishful thinking begins.

_(Perhaps, there is a bedroom, the walls painted an eggshell off-white._

_The room isn’t a prison yet, no, it’s just a regular old room, shared by two children, full of toys. Your twin spends most of his time outside of it, though. He’s fond of climbing onto the bookcases and tables set throughout the house, the high places that your parents warn you to stay away from._

_So, either three shelves or three hundred feet above you, your brother extends his hand, beckoning you to come up and join him._

_“C’mon Calliope! Stop being so scared!”)_

You could drown in these recollections. You do drown in them. Close your eyes and let the current take you, an ebb and flow of complexity. He was not born evil, with red eyes and malicioius intent. No one starts out that way, that is not how life works, even if it is an easier narrative to swallow in the end.

There were times when he was only your brother, not sum of all your fears, and somehow, that’s the unkindest cut of all.

_(Your name is Callie Calver, you are twelve years old, standing in your backyard, and your loathsome brother has a can of air freshener in one hand and your father’s cigarette lighter in the other. You have no idea what he plans to do with it. Probably attack the delightful little frogs that hop around and take refuge in the bushes._

_Your brother amuses himself in the sickest ways. Even your parents, who have always made excuses for his behavior to school counselors and the like, speak in hushed tones about his tendencies._

_“Papa’s going to be very angry with you for taking that,” you point out, your hands on your hips._

_However, Caliborn ignores you, as he is wont to do. He throws the lighter into the air once and catches it. Does it again, to prove he can do it._

_“Wanna see a magic trick?” He finally asks, a wild grin stretching across his face. “It’s like a video game, but better.”_

_You chew on your lip. “Um…”_

_Before you can respond, he flicks the lighter to life, and sprays the can of air freshener. But the wind has changed direction._

_So you instinctively twist out of the way. Not soon enough. Not at all soon enough._

_And then he’s not laughing anymore, because his mouth has fallen open in utter shock, and you’re lying on the ground, clutching at your face, and all you can do is scream, and scream and scream, while he stands there with the can in his hand, terror written across his features._

_"Oh fuck," he breathes. "Oh shit, oh fuck. I'm calling Dad.")_

Minutes later, your head hurts like a motherfucker, to use a borrowed expression.

You squint and let out a whine through gritted teeth. You drink in your surroundings nice and slow. Metal walls around you. Tile floor beneath your feet. A door with a little latch on it in front of you. The smell of something cloying, sweet, and artificial.

Oh.

You’re in the girls’ bathroom. You vaguely remember asking Miss Levin if you could be excused for a moment, so you must be in the English department. Given your penchant for losing track of time, it’s probably been quite a bit more than a moment. You’re really lucky that your teacher is understanding.

You grab your bag off the hook on the door, but something on one wall of the stall gives you pause.

Not the dried gum, or the numerous expletives scrawled in sharpie - those are indicative of business as usual - but a scarlet smear maybe half a foot above the toilet paper dispenser that, on closer examination, looks like blood. There are a few drops of the same substance on the floor, too.

How odd. Someone should call one of the janitors to clean that. Why did you even use this stall? How disgusting.

You push your bangs out of your eyes so you can see better.

You hand comes up wet and red, the pain at your temple needle-sharp. You gaze at the mark on the wall once more, and stumble out of the stall, full of dawning cognizance and horror.

How many times did you bang your head against the wall this time? Why does this keep happening?

 _(Well, Calliope, you know exactly why, but that’s little solace since you don’t know how to make it stop._ )

Hands placed on either side of the bathroom mirror, you lean forward and scrutinize the site of injury. It’s a decent cut. You can’t tell if it’s deep enough to require stitches, and really hope you didn’t earn yourself a concussion. You saturate a few paper towels with water and hand soap, and dab at the gash, wiping away the excess blood. It looks far less formidable once you’re finished, at least until it starts to bleed again.

You pull your phone out of the pocket of your sweater vest, and search through your contacts until you find the right name. It's either him or Dirk. Dirk will understand the dissociation part, but Eridan will understand everything else.

**uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering caligulasAquarium [CA]**

UU: i apologize deeply for bothering yoU dUring class time  
CA: botherin nothin wwere literally still analyzin a rose for emily  
CA: even miss levvin is pretty much fallin asleep thats how borin this is  
UU: i see  
CA: so are you plannin to cut the rest a the period  
CA: i can grab your shit  
CA: not lyin to levvin for you though  
CA: she can alwways fuckin tell wwhen im bullshittin  
UU: no, i do not reqUire any sUch services at the moment.  
UU: althoUgh i woUld be qUite gratefUl if yoU retrieved my belongings when class lets oUt.  
CA: no problem  
CA: so wwhat do you actually wwant  
CA: i lost the last of my cigs in a poker game wwith vris during lunch just sayin  
UU: well  
UU: i was wondering if yoU continUe to keep bandages and iodine in yoUr locker.  
CA: …  
CA: wwhy do you ask  
UU: would you mind if i told yoU later?  
CA: nah  
UU: alright then  
CA: my locker’s number 1759, combo is 28-41-07  
CA: if you touch anythin besides the bandages and shit i will hunt you to the ends of the universe make no mistake  
UU: i Understand  
CA: ill catch you next period i guess  
CA: usual place right  
UU: natUrally ^u^  
UU: thank yoU!

You grab the requisite dressings from Eridan’s locker, apply them in the nearest bathroom, leave school through a side entrance, and start walking. The usual place - at least for upperclassmen miscreants - is a park a decent trek away from school.

You guiltily try to calculate how many class periods you’re likely to miss from this excursion. At least three. Maybe you’ll just skip the remainder of the day. You don’t have any tests today

Eridan takes longer than you to arrive, but when he does, he’s carrying both his bag and yours, one slung over each shoulder, with his jacket hanging partially off his frame. You thank him soundly, a gesture he waves off. He pulls two cigarettes out of his pocket, sticks one into his mouth, and lights it.

“I thought you lost all your cigarettes to Vriska,” you say with a tiny smile.

He snorts and, after a second’s reluctance, hands one to you.

“Yeah, well, bein’ that I am a fuckin’ wizard and all, I conjured some more. Or I stole ‘em back outta her locker. Whichever.”

You shake your head at him, but do not refuse his offer.

You two smoke in relative silence for a while, relative meaning that he spends several minutes marveling at the fact that you are voluntarily cutting class for the first time in recorded history. This is a day that will live in infamy, etc, etc, etc. At your expression of earnest guilt, he lays off that particular line of conversation.

His eyes flit to your head. “Alright, c’mere, lemme see.”

You lean forward. Eridan peels the bandage back carefully, letting out an empathetic wince once he pulls it free. He wrinkles his nose and nervously bounces on the balls of his feet, leaves crunching beneath them.

This does not seem to portend very well for you.

He swears under his breath, yanks a fresh bandage out of the box, and applies it with a practiced touch.

“On the bright side, I’ve definitely done worse,” he says.

You nod miserably, head continuing to throb.

“That isn’t much of a bright side, you know.”

He shrugs. “Guess not. But you should probably show it to someone later. How’d you even do that?”

“I banged my head.”

“I noticed.”

“Repeatedly.”

Eridan puts his head in one hand, sighs, and looks back up to you.

“Right.”

* * *

In spite of your afternoon, you can’t help but smile, light and genuine, at the sight of Kurloz’s van parked across the street. He waves you down, and you slide into the front passenger seat, dropping your bag on the floor at your feet.

 _“And what sort of wicked shit did you do today, righteous sister?”_ he signs.

You shrug. “Nothing really. School is school.”

He takes your chin in one of his large, calloused hands. Your heart skips several beats. Why are his hands always so warm?

As it happens, he’s only doing it so he can properly examine your face, which he does.

_“Then what’s that fuckin bandaid all stuck to your head for?”_

“I fell down. Banged my head on a stair.”

His mouth tightens, one long line of skepticism. 

“It wasn’t Caliborn, if that’s what you’re thinking,” you tell him quickly. “I’d say so if it was.”

 _“Maybe that’s true,”_ he concedes, as he shifts the car into gear.

(Early on, Porrim joked that you resembled young Cosette in Mituna’s faded 1up shirt. It fell nearly to your knees, hung off one shoulder, and was ridiculously comfortable, making it the perfect thing to sleep in. 

Her smile tightened a little when Kurloz essentially moved into the apartment, namely because you’d frequently spend the a good chunk of your evening curled up against him, wearing only that and your underwear.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Porrim began on one such night, fixing Kurloz in one of her patented mom stares. “To be honest, I barely trust anyone to this extent. At any rate, Callie’s going to be eighteen soon, and you’re going to be twenty-two, and–”

Kurloz raised a hand to silence her.

“You need to up and get your motherfuckin’ chill on, and stop listening to Cranky. Callie’s like Gamzee to me, ‘cept, like, they ain’t got the same parents.” He pauses. “Least I think so, anyway.”

Everyone laughed at that, even you. 

A laugh that became a stifled sigh of resignation. Like a sister, you.)

Later, listening to Mituna snore, and lying barely a foot away from Kurloz, you understand that all things must balance in the end, and how beautiful and terrible equilibrium can be.

In every blessing lies a curse, a dagger hidden behind an offer of mercy.

And the worst part?

You’re the one holding the knife.

Lying on your stomach, resting your head on the back of your arm, you squint into the semidarkness. You could wake him up just like that, tell him you had a bad dream, and let him hold you for a drowsy hour or so.

You could let him lead you out onto the fire escape, where the light is better, and watch him sign reassurances to you, the two of you staring at the city below.

_“You never deserved any of this, Callie. But look at you, look at how smart and kind you are. You will be motherfucking glorious. You’re already motherfucking glorious.”_

You could exhale once and slump against him, exhausted, let him fold you into his embrace and half-carry you back inside. Let him tuck the sheets around you, and then tap you once, gently, on the forehead with his index finger, an inscrutable little grin on his face.

But you won’t, because he warrants a better show of gratitude than deceit. 

You rise silently from your bed, tiptoe into the bathroom, lie down in the tub and close your eyes, relishing the feel of the cold porcelain.

You always recite poetry when you cannot sleep, and you know without thinking which one you’ll recite tonight.

 _“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;_  
_I lift my lids and all is born again._  
_(I think I made you up inside my head.)_

 _The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,_  
_And arbitrary blackness gallops in:_  
_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead…”_

Poor, mad Sylvia, who stuck her head in an oven, was wrong though. It doesn’t drop dead. It doesn’t. It doesn’t; it never does. You’ve screwed your eyes as shut as they’ll go, and you’re still here, and so is everything around you.

You bring Kurloz to mind. His eyes. His grin. The gravelly voice he’ll use maybe once or so a year, making each time he does its own special brand of magic. You don’t deserve anymore than you’ve been given. No one is entitled to anything.

You think of Roxy and Jade holding hands in the cafeteria. You're happy for them both.

But you’d like to be someone’s first choice for once in your whole life.

And you’d like to be more _(not more, but different)_ than a sister to him. 

 _“… I should have loved a thunderbird instead;_  
_At least when spring comes they roar back again._  
_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._  
_(I think I made you up inside my head.)”_

You stare up at the ceiling tiles, and begin to count each one.


End file.
